


Summertime is Past and Gone

by swampdiamonds



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, F/M, Picnics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 16:44:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swampdiamonds/pseuds/swampdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finduilas and Gwindor have a picnic by the river. Watch out for the undercurrents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summertime is Past and Gone

“Do you remember,” asked Gwindor, twirling a violet between thumb and forefinger, “when we were all up at Ivrin, and you said you were going to catch crayfish, and hung your dress on a branch, and it fell in the water but you thought I had done it, so you grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me in?”

Finduilas smiled at the memory. “We did catch a few eventually, after the mud settled back down.”

She gestured toward the river just beyond them. “I’ll bet there’s some in the stones down there, if you wanted to do a reenactment?”

Gwindor snorted and gestured toward his left arm, wrapped in a sling and held close to his body. “Not with this, unless you really do mean to drown me, this time.”

"Oh…no, I suppose not. But you can dip your feet in, surely? Come on—"

They put the wineskin and the cheese rinds back in the basket. Finduilas folded her skirt around her waist and tied it with her sash. Gwindor rolled up his leggings. They picked their way down the rocks, settling on a flat, sun-warmed boulder and letting their legs dangle into the water.

The Narog was still deep and swift here, an hour’s leisurely walk downriver from the city gates, but the high bluffs softened slightly into craggy, beech-crowned hills. A little island lay just off the bank, cluttered with driftwood from the receding spring floods. The diverted stream, slowed in its headlong rush southward, formed a shallow pool.

Finduilas could see clear to the algae-covered rocks at the bottom. There were crayfish, she noticed, peering cautiously from their crevices. She swished her feet slowly, watching the sunlight make wavering spiderwebs on her skin. Gwindor picked up a leaf and flicked it into the water, watching the current spin it in circles before whisking it away. “We camped a few nights at Ivrin on our way down here,” he said conversationally.

“Did you?” 

Finduilas tried to hide her surprise. Gwindor rarely spoke to her of anything that had happened between his departure and return: it was perfectly understandable, of course, but those years lay between them like a chasm. 

He continued. "Yes. We were coming along the foothills of the Ered Wethrin, travelling by night, and the sun was just coming up over the hills, and I saw the beeches, and I _knew_ —"

His eyes were on the hills above, or past them, his face rapt at the memory. “—we came down this narrow ledge, and the trees opened, and there it was. Exactly as I remembered. Glittering like, like…well, glittering, and singing, too I thought, although—“ he wrinkled his brow, coming back to himself, “that may have had more to do with not having eaten in a week. I was trying to save the lembas…”

 _What lembas?_ She thought, but said nothing. Questioning his omissions, she had learned, would only lead to an abrupt subject change. 

Gwindor sighed. “We slept right there on the shore, and I woke in the night and looked up at the stars, and I felt…like myself. Like there was something still there to go back to, maybe, that hadn’t been hammered out beyond all recognition.”

He looked up then, using his finger to trace the outline of her hand splayed on the stone. “You recognized me.”

She nodded cautiously. “Of course I did.”

He paused, his finger hovering near her wrist. “How—how did you know?”

“I…” 

She trailed off, grasping for the right words. “It was your voice. You were standing there before the throne, shaking with hunger and exhaustion, and then you opened your mouth and started talking back to my father. Who else could it have been?”

Gwindor took this in, his eyes focused on the water flowing over the rocks. “Who else...I mean,” he said softly, “how did you _know?_ That it was still me. Not…something else wearing my flesh and my voice and my memories.”

She saw the turn of his thought, then. What could she say to comfort, to reassure? What could she offer besides platitudes?

“I didn’t know. I hoped.”

The stream flowed on. She swished her feet where they dangled in the water. A long silence, each alone in thought.

“I don’t know, either,” he said finally.

His hand still lay near her, and she placed her own over it, running her thumb over his knuckles. He closed his eyes, his face turned toward the water.

***

Minnows darted up now, grown bold enough to nibble first Gwindor’s and then her feet. She watched them dart to and fro, watched the strange shadows cast by waterbugs skittering by, watched a crayfish emerge and crawl along the bottom…

Gwindor leaned against her, and she put her arm around his waist. He started and jerked upright, blinking. 

“Sorry! I drifted off. The sun and the wine are making me sleepy.” 

He glanced back to the glade where they had left their picnic. “Do you mind if I go lie down for a bit?”

Finduilas shook her head and he rose, picking his way barefoot over the rocks. She turned back to the water. The sun bore down; reflecting blindingly off the pool’s surface, forming undulating patterns on the rocks below, fading into the dark edges of the pool where the crayfish lurked. She thought of Ivrin in springs long past; of slipping into those cool, clear waters…

The temptation was too much. She bundled her skirt around her waist and stepped into the water. 

It was quite shallow here, scarcely covering her calves, but the current was still swift. She let her toes slip through the thick algae to the stone below. It was soft and springy, like moss. With one arm outstretched for balance and the other holding her skirt, she inched forward, seeking a stable foothold. Here was a flat rock—

It tilted. She dropped her skirt and splayed her arms, but it was too late. The current caught her ankles, and with a squawk unbefitting a scion of the House of Finwë, she found herself sitting sprawled on the rocks with the river rushing over her lap. It was so sudden, and so shockingly cold, that for a moment she could do nothing but sit there and gasp. 

She struggled to find purchase on the slippery rocks and push herself upright. After a few false starts that ended in more splashing, she sat on the rocks and let the river wash over her. The water flowed past, swirling through the debris of fallen branches to rejoin the Narog. The river stretched out before her, serpentine and brilliant in the sunlight. 

At last, she hoisted herself carefully upright and picked her way back to the bank. Back on dry ground, she wrung out her skirt as best she could. It still clung to her uncomfortably as she approached the glade, leaving a trail of dripping footprints behind her. She could see Gwindor stretched out under the trees, asleep. She stood a moment, feeling river water trickle uncomfortably down her back. Then, grasping a solution, she took the blanket from the basket. With a glance at Gwindor, who showed no signs of waking, she stripped out of her wet dress and folded the blanket around herself, knotting it at the shoulder and waist. She dashed back to the bank to lay the sodden garment out to dry in the sun, then returned to sit next to him. 

There were violets all around them, emerging in knotty clusters from the leaf-mold. The canopy was deepening toward summer: even the oak leaves had unfurled by now. She observed Gwindor’s face at her side. Dappled light caught the curve of a sunken eye, the lines around the mouth, a crooked scar running along his temple that she had never dared ask about. This was the face she had recognized, and grown accustomed to, these many months now.

She sat awhile in thought, plucking violets and stringing them into a flower-chain. Eventually, Gwindor stirred and pulled himself upright with a yawn. He turned to look at her, his brow wrinkling in confusion as he took in the changes in her appearance.

“I fell in,” she explained.

He continued to stare. The corner of his mouth twitched into what she now recognized as a smile. Then he laughed—harsh, creaky, but genuine. “Were you after the crayfish? Did you catch us any supper?”

She reached out to give him a playful shove, but thought better of it. “No, so you’ll just have to make do at my father’s table.”

Something flashed across his face, there and then gone. He glanced up at the sky, where the sun had long since passed its zenith. “We should head back soon, if we’re to meet your father.”

She sighed. “Yes, I suppose so. And I promised I’d take a look at the accounts before the Exchequer meeting tomorrow.”

His right hand, fidgeting at his side, found the flower chain that Finduilas had abandoned. He held it up, examining it critically. The violets had already begun to wilt, the stems gone limp and the petals curling up at the edges. Seized by some sudden whimsy, he reached out and draped it in a circle on her still-damp hair.

Finduilas felt tears well, suddenly and unexpectedly, but she smiled. “You used to make me flower-crowns. ‘A crown for a queen.’ And then I would tell you not to be silly; there was no queen in Nargothrond. And then you said—:”

He raised an eyebrow and laid a hand across his chest in mock solemnity: “—Queen of my _heart_ , Faelivrin!”

Finduilas laughed and turned away to surreptitiously dab at her eyes. Gwindor began struggling to his feet, and she rose to help him. “Were we really ever such young fools?” he said.

“Speak for yourself! At least _I_ never wrote poems about the wondrous sheen of your hair.”

He passed his hand over his head absentmindedly. “Only because you were too busy composing songs about—how did you put it—‘the eternal Spring of love’.”

They fell silent for a while, lost in memory. Finduilas nodded toward the narrow footpath leading down along the river to the Gates. “Shall we, then?”

Gwindor nodded. The corner of his mouth twitched. “Are you going to wear that back to the city, then?”

She looked down at herself and laughed. “Oh! No, can you imagine? Although it might be worth it just to see what the gate-wardens say.

“As highly-trained defenders of the realm, they would offer nothing but the utmost courtesy to her Highness of Nargothrond,” Gwindor said drily, “until you and I passed out of earshot and they fell over themselves laughing.”

“Well, I suppose I’d better change back, then. Just a moment.”

She went back to the bank to retrieve her dress. It was still damp, and there was a patch of mud where she had fallen. No matter; it was at least no longer dripping, and would dry as they walked. She untied the blanket and slipped the dress back on. Before she turned back, she gave a last glance to the river as it disappeared beyond the hills of the High Faroth on the horizon. She thought of it running down, mingling with Sirion in the willow-meads, and passing through the marshes into the Sea.

***

On the path, picking their way through anemones and bramble-blossoms, Gwindor spoke:

“This was a good day.”

The sunlight danced through the leaves on the path ahead, creating dappled patterns. She thought of the glitter of sunlight on the rock-pool surface; of slipping in the current; of the river washing over her.

Something fell over her eye, and she reached up to brush it away. A violet. She let it slip from her fingers.

“Yes. It was a good day,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is lifted, with apologies, from [Bill Monroe](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk1FF8G26w0). 
> 
> “He [Túrin] did not scorn her, and was glad in her company; yet she knew that he had no love of the kind she wished. His mind and heart were elsewhere, by rivers in springs long past.” I’ve borrowed the final phrase from _The Children of Húrin_ ; it seemed thematically apt, as well as being foreshadowing of the Gwindor/Finduilas/Túrin love triangle.
> 
> Gwindor sassing Orodreth: this is my take on The Lay of the Children of Húrin III: 1905-1917:
> 
> “but Flinding go-Fuilin fiercely answered:  
> ‘Is the son of Húrin, who sits on high  
> in a deathless doom dreadly chainéd,  
> unknown, nameless, in need of plea  
> to fend from him the fate of foe and spy?  
> Flinding the faithful, the far wanderer,  
> though form and face fires of anguish  
> and bitter bondage, Balrogs’ torments,  
> have seared and twisted, for a song of welcome  
> had hoped in his heart at that home-coming  
> that he dreamed of long in dark labour.  
> Are these deep places to dungeons turned,  
> a lesser Angband in the land of the Gnomes?’”
> 
> It’s a pretty bold thing to say to the guy who has both the authority and the legal precedent to banish you!


End file.
